But he persisted until he found oil and made a fortune in the business. Then he invested in railroads and telecommunications. Today, Anschutz, a Russell native who now lives in Denver, is worth more than $13 billion.

On Tuesday, he was inducted into the Kansas Business Hall of Fame during the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry's 2000 Caucus banquet at the Kansas Expocentre.

"You have to take risks. It's OK to take risks -- without them you can't advance your career," Anschutz said. "It's OK to make mistakes. You can make up for them. I've made my share of mistakes."

Anschutz, 59, graduated from The University of Kansas in 1961 with a finance degree. He wanted to get a law degree but his father fell ill and the family finances took a turn for the worse, so he returned home to help run the family business.

The next five years were the hardest of his life.

"As a wildcatter, 95 percent of everything you do is failure -- most holes are dry," said Anschutz.

His first big strike was in 1967. Upon the discovery, he immediately bought the surrounding oil leases on credit. The next day, a spark ignited his entire field. He called in the famed firefighter, "Red" Adair, who was reluctant to cap the blazing well without assurance of compensation.

Anschutz contacted Universal Studios which was filming a story on Adair at the time, and sold them the rights to film his fire for $100,000, enough to assure payment to Adair and continue operations.

In 1982, he sold most of his oil fields to Mobil for $500 million. In 1984, he bought the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, and in 1988, he took control of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He put a fiber-optics network along the railroad right-of-way. In 1996, Southern Pacific was sold to Union Pacific for $5.4 billion. He retained a 5.4 percent stake in the combined company and also kept the telecommunications company and fiber-optics network based along the right-of-way. In 1997, the telecommunications company, now called Qwest Communications, was taken public.

He now owns 40 percent of Qwest Communications, which has a market value of $33 billion. His Anschutz Corp. has ownership interests in the Major Soccer League and teams in Chicago and Denver, as well as the Los Angeles Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers. Anschutz owns more than 335,000 acres in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas.

He has donated a lot of money to The University of Kansas, including funding for the Anschutz Sports Pavilion, an indoor practice facility.

"I'm very proud of Kansas," Anschutz said in an interview. "I'm proud of being from here. I'm honored to be here."

He encouraged business people to create value where it didn't exist before and to act in a manner in which "you can be proud of yourself."

"At the end of the day, it's how you did it that matters," he said.

Alva Lease Duckwall, founder of Duckwall Stores of Abilene, was inducted posthumously into The Kansas Business Hall of Fame, which is located at Emporia State University.